The
full implications of
Darwin's revolution have yet to be widely realized. Zoology is still a
minority
subject in universities, and even those who choose to study it often
make their
decision without appreciating its profound philosophical significance.
Philosophy and the subjects known as ‘humanities’ are still taught
almost as
if Darwin had never lived. No doubt this will change in
time. The
Selfish Gene (1989) p.1

The
account of the origin of life that I shall
give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to
see what
happened. The
Selfish Gene (1989) p.14

It
is absolutely safe to say
that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that
person is
ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider
that). “Put
Your Money on Evolution”The New York Times(April
9,
1989)section VIIp.35

Evolution
is very possibly not,
in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being
used to
explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed
objects,
like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have
any
explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are
back to
miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of
explanation.
River out
of Eden (1995) p.83

The
illusion of purpose is so
powerful that biologists themselves use the assumption of good design
as a
working tool. River out
of Eden (1995) p.98

The
universe we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no
design, no
purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
As that
unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless
Nature Will
neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And
we dance
to its music. River out
of Eden (1995) p.133

Biology
is the study of
complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for
a
purpose. The
Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.1

All appearances to the
contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics,
albeit
deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he
designs his
cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future
purpose in his
mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious automatic process
which
Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the
existence
and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It
has no
mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no
vision, no
foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of
watchmaker in
nature, it is the blind watchmaker.The
Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.5

Darwin
made it possible to be
an intellectually fulfilled atheist. The
Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.6

In
the Cambrian strata of
rocks, vintage about 600 million years (evolutionists are now dating
the
beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years), are the oldest
in which
we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them
already
in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It
is as
though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.
Needless
to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted
creationists.
The Blind
Watchmaker (1996) p.229

For
Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped
over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of
the central
point of evolution. The
Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.249

My argument will be that
Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle
capable of
explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even
if there
were no actual evidence in favour of Darwinian theory (there
is, of course) we should still be
justified in preferring it over all rival theories.
One way to dramatize this point
is to make a prediction. I predict that, if a form of life is ever
discovered in
another part of the universe, however outlandish and weirdly alien that
form of
life may be in detail, it will be found to resemble life on earth in
one key
respect: it will have evolved by some kind of Darwinian natural
selection.
The Blind
Watchmaker (1996)
pp.287-288 see also: Fark

It is almost
as if the human brain
were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it
hard to
believe. The Blind Watchmaker
(1996) p.316

All we can say
about such beliefs
is, firstly, that they are superfluous and, secondly, that they assume
the
existence of the main thing we want to explain, namely, organized
complexity.
The Blind
Watchmaker (1996) p.316

I
want to return now to the
charge that science is just a faith. The more extreme version of that
charge—and one that I often encounter as both a scientist and a
rationalist—is an accusation of zealotry and bigotry in scientists
themselves
as great as that found in religious people. Sometimes there may be a
little bit
of justice in this accusation. “Is
Science a Religion?” The Humanist
January 1997

In plain language, there
came a moment in the evolution of hominids when God intervened and
injected a
human soul into a previously animal lineage (When? A million years ago?
Two
million years ago? Between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens? Between
'archaic' Homo
sapiens and H. sapiens sapiens?). The sudden injection is necessary, of
course,
otherwise there would be no distinction upon which to base Catholic
morality,
which is speciesist to the core. You can kill adult animals for meat,
but
abortion and euthanasia are murder because human life is involved.

Catholicism's
"net" is not limited to moral considerations, if only because Catholic
morals have scientific implications. Catholic morality demands the
presence of a
great gulf between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom.
Such a gulf
is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal
soul in
the time-line is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of
science.

More generally it is
completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that
religion
keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and
values.
A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and
qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The
difference is,
inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims,
and this
means scientific claims. You
can't have it both ways: Irreconcilable differences?
Skeptical
Inquirer July 1999 pp.62-64

Darwin's
theory of evolution by
natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been
proposed
for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of
all life
wherever it may turn up in the universe. It is the only known
explanation for
the rich diversity of animals, pants, fungi and
bacteria. Forward
to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith
(2000) p.xv

Natural
selection is the only
workable explanation for the beautiful and compelling illusion of
'design' that pervades
every living body and every organ. Knowledge of evolution may not be
strictly useful
in everyday commerce. You can live some sort of life and die without
ever
hearing the name of Darwin. But if, before you die, you want to
understand why
you lived in the first place, Darwinism is the one subject that you
must study.
Forward to
The Theory of Evolution by John
Maynard Smith (2000) p.xvi

There
are good things and bad
about the poetry of general evolutionism. On balance I think it fosters
confusion more than illumination, but there is certainly some of
both.
Unweaving
the Rainbow (2000)
p.192

It
is absolutely safe to say that
if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that
person is
ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider
that). Ignorance
is No Crime
Free Inquiry Summer 2001

As an
academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian,
believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in
evolution,
certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of
purpose
which so strikes all who contemplate
nature. A
Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.10

It
is forever true that DNA is a
double helix, true that if you are a chimpanzee (or an octopus or a
kangaroo)
trace your ancestors back far enough you will eventually hit a shared
ancestor.
To a pedant, these are still hypotheses which might be falsified
tomorrow. But
they never will be. A Devil's Chaplain
(2003) pp.17-18

Darwin's
achievement, like
Einstein's, is universal and timeless. A
Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.79

Maybe
we are neo-Darwinists
today, but let us spell neo with a very small n!
Our neo-Darwinism is very much
in the spirit of Darwin himself. A
Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.80

Genomes
are littered with
nonfunctional pseudogenes, faulty duplicates of functional genes that
do
nothing, while their functional cousins (the word doesn't even need
scare
quotes) get on with their business in a different part of the genome.
And there’s
lots more DNA that doesn’t even deserve the name pseudogene. It, too,
is
derived by duplication, but not duplication of functional genes. It
consists of
multiple copies of junk, “tandem repeats”, and other nonsense which may
be
useful for forensic detectives but which doesn’t seem to be used in the
body
itself. Once again, creationists might spend some earnest time
speculating on
why the Creator should bother to litter genomes with untranslated
pseudogenes
and junk tandem repeat DNA. A
Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.99

There
may be some deep questions
about the cosmos that are forever beyond science. The mistake is to
think that
they are therefore not beyond religion
too. A
Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.149

In
any case, the belief that
religion and science occupy separate magesteria is dishonest. It
founders on the
undeniable fact that religions still make claims about the world which,
on
analysis, turn out to be scientific claims. Moreover, religious
apologists try
to have it both ways, to eat their cake and have it. When talking to
intellectuals, they carefully keep off science's turf, safe inside the
separate
and invulnerable religious magesterium. But when talking to a
non-intellectual
mass audience they make wanton use of miracle stories, which are
blatant
intrusions into scientific territory. The Virgin Birth, the
Resurrection, The
Raising of Lazarus, the manifestations of Mary and the Saints around
the
Catholic world. Even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used
for religious
propaganda, and very effective they are with an audience of
unsophisticates and
children. Even on of these miracle amounts to a scientific claim, a
violation of
the normal running of the natural world. Theologians, if they want to
remain
honest, should make a choice. You can claim your own
magisterium, separate
from science's but still deserving of respect. But in that case you
have to
renounce miracles. Or you can keep your Lourdes and your miracles, and
enjoy
their huge recruiting potential among the uneducated. But then you must
kiss
goodbye to separate magesteria and your high-minded aspiration to
converge on
science. A Devil's Chaplain
(2003) p.150

Next
time somebody tells you
something that sounds important, think to yourself, 'Is this the kind
of thing
that people probably know because of evidence or is it the kind of
thing that
people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And
next
time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them,
'What kind
of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good
answer, I hope
you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.A Devil's
Chaplain (2003) p.248

I
toyed with atheism from the age
of about nine, originally because I worked out that, of all the
hundreds of
religions in the world, it was the sheerest accident that I was brought
up
Christian. They couldn’t all be right, so maybe none of them was. I
later
reverted to a kind of pantheism when I realised the shattering
complexity and
beauty of the living world. Then, around the age of 16, I first
understood that
Darwinism provides an explanation big enough and elegant enough to
replace gods.
I have been an atheist ever since. You
Ask The Questions Independent February 20 2003

As
a Darwinian, the aspect of
religion that catches my attention is its profligate wastefulness, its
extravagant display of baroque uselessness. Nature is a miserly
accountant,
grudging the pennies, watching the clock, punishing the smallest waste.
If a
wild animal habitually performs some useless activity, natural
selection will
favor rival individuals who instead devote time to surviving and
reproducing.
Nature cannot afford frivolous jeux desprits.
Ruthless utilitarianism
trumps, even if it doesn’t always seem that
way. Free
Inquiry June 2004

The world is divided into
things that look designed (like birds and airliners) and things that
don't
(rocks and mountains). Things that look designed are divided into those
that
really are designed (submarines and tin openers) and those that aren't
(sharks
and hedgehogs). The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is
that
their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in
a
functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly.

Darwinian natural
selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would
be hard
put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically
elegant.

So powerful is the
illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to
realise that
it is an illusion. NewScientist
September 17 2005 p.33

The Universe
could so easily have remained
lifeless and simple -- just physics and chemistry, just the scattered
dust of
the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that
it did not
-- the fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion
years after
the universe evolved literally out of nothing -- is a fact so
staggering that I
would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even this is not
the end of
the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings
capable
of comprehending the process, and even of comprehending the process by
which
they comprehend it. The
Ancestor's Tale 2005 p.613

I should have
been talking about the combined
probability of life's originating on a planet and leading, eventually,
to the
evolution of intelligent beings capable of anthropic reflection. It
could be
that the chemical origin of a self-replicating molecule (the necessary
trigger
for the origin of natural selection) was a relatively probable event
but later
steps in the evolution of intelligent life were highly
improbable.
Intelligent Thought (2006) p. 95-6

Now if you
take your science as narrowly
evidential, you'll say something like, "Since you've never seen life on
another planet other than this one, how can you possibly say anything
about the way life might be universally, on other planets.?" On the
face of it that sounds like a reasonable complaint, but on the other
hand there surely must be some things that theory tells us must be so.
And it can't be right to rule out of bounds everything that we can't
see with our own eyes.
The
Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On March 16 2006

I am very
seriously interested in the sorts of questions which 500 years ago
would have been given religious answers. What are we here for? Where
did it all come from? In a way, I think religion is to be admired for
asking the right questions. I just think it's got the wrong
answers. Dawkins
and the missionary position The
Age
December 23, 2006

Dawkins:
We only need to use
the word ‘faith’ when there isn’t any evidence.
Lennox: No, not at all. I presume you’ve got faith in your wife — is
there
any evidence for that?
Dawkins: Yes. Yes, plenty of evidence.
Lennox: Hmmm The
God Delusion Debate October 3 2007 Part I
36.20

What’s
to prevent us from
saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult
question. byFaith
December 2007

Contrary to
Huxley, I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific
hypothesis like any other. Even if hard to test in practice, it belongs
in the same TAB or temporary agnosticism box as the controversies over
the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions. God's existence or
non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in
principle if not in practice. The God
Delusion (2008) p.72-3

Whatever
else they may say, those scientists who subscribe to the 'separate
magesteria' school of thought should concede that the universe with a
supernaturally intelligent creator is a very different kind of universe
from one without. The difference between the two hypothetical universes
could hardly be more fundamental in principle, even if it is not easy
to test in practice. And it undermines the dictum that science must be
completely silent about religion's central existence claim. The
presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a
scientific question, even if not in practice -- or not yet -- a decided
one. The God Delusion (2008) p.82

When faced
with miracle stories, Gould would presumably retort along the following
lines. The whole point of NOMA is that it is a two-way bargain. The
moment religion steps on science's turf and starts to meddle in the
real world with miracles, it ceases to be religion in the sense that
Gould is defending, and his amicabilis concordia is
broken. Note, however, that miracle-free religion defended by Gould
would not be recognized by most practicing theists in the pew or on the
prayer mat. It would, indeed, be a grave disappointment to
them.
The God
Delusion (2008) p.84

Any
creationist lawyer who
got me on the stand could instantly win over the jury simply by asking
me: 'Has your knowledge of evolution influenced you in the direction of
becoming an atheist?' I would have to answer yes and, at one
stroke, I would have lost the jury. The God
Delusion (2008) p.93

We
really need Darwin's powerful crane
to account for the diversity of life on Earth, and especially the
persuasive illusion
of design. The origin of life, by contrast, lies outside the reach of
that
crane, because natural selection cannot proceed with out it. Here the
anthropic
principle comes into its own. We can deal with the unique origin of
life by
postulating a very large number of planetary opportunities. Once that
initial
stroke of luck has been granted – and the anthropic principle most
decisively
grants it to us – natural selection takes over: and natural is
emphatically
not a matter of luck.

Nevertheless,
it may be that the
origin of life is not the only major gap in the evolutionary story that
is
bridged by sheer luck... the origin of the eucaryotic cell (or kind of
cell with
a nucleolus and various other complicated features such as
mitochondria, which
are not present in bacteria) was an even more momentous, difficult and
statistically improbable step than the origin of life. The origin of
consciousness
might be another major gap whose bridging was of the same order of
improbability... Natural selection works because it is a cumulative
one-way
street to improvement. It needs some luck to get started, and the
'billions of
planets' anthropic principle grants it that luck. Maybe a few later
gaps in the evolutionary
story also need major infusions of luck, with anthropic
justification.
The God Delusion
(2008) p.168-9

The
Battle over evolution is only one skirmish in a much larger
war. Expelled
April 18 2008 2.50

Ben
Stein: How did it
start?Richard
Dawkins: Nobody knows how it got started. We know the kind of event it
must have been. We know the sort of event that must have happened for
the origin of life.Ben Stein: And what was
that? Richard Dawkins: It was
the origin of the first self replicating molecule. Ben Stein: Right, and
how did that happen? Richard Dawkins: I've
told you, we don't know. Ben Stein: So you have
no idea how it started. Richard Dawkins: No, no.
Nor has anyone.
Expelled April 18 2008 1.30.05

I
suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that
if you look at the details of
biochemistry or molecular biology, you might find a signature of some
sort of designer.
Expelled April 18 2008 1.31.11

I
must say I wasn’t the real enthusiastic naturalist. My route to science
and
biology was almost more philosophical. I was interested in the
questions of
existence -- why are we here? Times
Online July
19 2008

We
don’t need fossils in order
to demonstrate that
evolution is a fact. We, I mean, it would be an obviously true fact
even if not
a single fossil had ever been formed. Hugh
Hewitt Interview
October 21 2009

As
I said, it wouldn’t be at
all surprising if a man
called Jesus or Yehoshua existed. I would say the evidence that He
worked
miracles, He rose from the dead, He was born of a virgin, is zero...
All right,
then there may be some... All right. I will accept that there are some
ancient
historians who take the Gospels
seriously. Hugh
Hewitt Interview October 21 2009

HH:
Did you ever believe in
God, Richard Dawkins?
RD: Of course, I was a child.
HH: And when did you put off your foolish belief in God?
RD: When did I put away childish things?
HH: Yes.
RD: At the age of about fifteen.
HH: And under who’s influence was it?
RD: I suppose it was the influence, not of Darwin directly, but of the
education
in evolution that I was receiving. Hugh Hewitt Interview
October 21 2009

Be
that as it may, what this remarkable
bile suggests to me is that there is something rotten in the Internet
culture
that can vent it. RicharadDawkins.netpost
February 24 2010

I
have a certain niggling sympathy for
the creationists, because I think, in a way, the writing is on the wall
for the
religious view that says it's fully compatible with evolution. I think
there's a
kind of incompatibility, which the creationists see
clearly. Adventures
in
Democracy
March 8 2010 2.20